Back to a leisurely lifestyle again, after a pretty hectic week centred on last Wednesday's workshop in Windsor - we were right under the castle walls but Camilla wouldn't let us hold it there so we had to settle on the hotel across the road.

I take my hat off to those who live and work in that part of the world - how they handle the unremitting noise from Heathrow, the traffic volume, the sheer numbers of people, and the attendant stress levels, is entirely beyond me. Nothing gave me more pleasure than to get back to an environment where early morning birdsong is as noisy as it gets.

A note to the brave souls who attended the workshop, by the way - please don't take the above comments as suggesting I didn't enjoy your company, because I did - it was a real pleasure to meet you and I really appreciate the fact that you all had to tackle more than a little of England's appalling traffic in order to spend the day with me.

Continuing on the 'workshop' theme, one thing that came across from something that was touched upon on Wednesday, is relevant enough for me to discuss now in WICS.

It's to emphasise that the TTEW methodology is only one of probably thousands of different ways to trade, and it has no monopoly on successful trading.
The trading environment is essentially a strange one, very different from anything else you might choose to do as a way of earning a living.
Markets are in a constant state of flux, and nothing is certain, except uncertainty. It's a bit like working in an environment where yesterday when you left home to go to work, you turned left out of the drive and there was your office, but today, you need to turn right because the office has moved overnight, unknown to you.
How do you deal with that situation?
Without a methodology to give you a basis of consistency, my view is that you CANNOT deal with it, and that's why I developed TTEW - to give ME a place within the markets to which I can return at any time in the secure knowledge that I have a place to start off from, that is solid and reliable, and provides the necessary direction each time I decide to venture into the markets by ordering a trade.

Anyway, if at face value you find the above mutterings a wee bit 'Kung Fu Grasshopper' then please just take a moment to think about them, and ask yourself what in the markets you can actually define as being consistent and reliable.
Not a lot, I suspect you might conclude.
How to deal with that?
No other way (in my view) than to have a consistent and reliable methodology, to let markets come to you, by ordering potential trades in advance, and by allowing the market to stop you out in due course. Easy!

Anyway, the logical follow - on from what I'm saying, is to emphasise yet again that whereas you're presumably using 'my' TTEW as the basis of your current trading methodology, the more you can take ownership of it for yourself and see it as YOUR methodology, the more successful you'll become, because your 'ownership' will make you comfortable with it as YOUR 'home base'.
You'll also begin to see ways in which you can 'tweak' it the better to suit your own style of trading.

One of those who attended the workshop, for example, has modified TTEW to an extent, by deciding not only upon an entry point for a trade, but also setting an exit target, rather than letting the dma tell her where to be stopped out. She might decide that her target is 20 points' net profit, or whatever, and by doing so, she has removed an element of the uncertainty that surrounds my way of letting the market tell me when to exit.

Is she 'wrong'?

I don't think so - if that's what works for her, and she is making trading profits, who am I to suggest she is wrong?
'Wrong' would be to do things differently every time, because that would be to admit to having no methodology, but if you decide how you're going to trade and become entirely consistent with your methodology, you certainly don't have to do it exactly as I do!

I know I bang on about this, but really it can't be emphasised enough that everyone has to arrive at what is comfortable for them, rather than slavishly following in someone else's footsteps.

Only one chart today because I've been rather bombarding you these last few weeks and this one in fact has more than one 'lesson' in it - I've added some commentary to it as usual to provide a bit of guidance.

I believe the UK weather is pretty agreeable at the moment, so I hope you are benefiting from that, and I'll wish you well (as always) until next weekend.

Ian.

PS - a note from my Webmaster re timings over the coming weeks due to his own commitments: next weeks' WICS (26th June) won't be online till late Monday 27th, the July 3rd one will be as normal, and there will be no WICS the following weekend (10th July). 17th and 24th July will be as normal, 31st July will be online by Monday afternoon 1st August. Thereafter, there may be no WICS the following weekend but I'll keep you posted nearer the time.
So just keep checking the website, and perhaps keep a note of this paragraph to remind you.

PPS: if you are one of those ntlworld/tesco.net people suffering from non receipt of replies to your emails to me, please read last week's WICS comment on the problem and get yourself a new email address! I'm still receiving messages from one or two of you asking why I'm not responding and I just don't have the time to bother replying, knowing it is likely to be bounced back. This is not your fault, unless you persist!!

PPPS: Spreadex have just let me know they're offering a bottle of Bollinger to those TTEW students opening new spread betting acounts with them - just the thing for a warm summer's evening!
Anyway, I know you'll check them out to see if they might suit your trading needs, and you won't open an account purely on the basis of free booze - in any event, you'll need to have completed a couple of trades with them before your bottle arrives, which of course is fair enough. Overall, I find they are pretty good. Here's the link if you're interested:

'IMPORTANT NOTICE: These WICS charts are for EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. They represent only MY understanding of what is happening in the market for any particular share, stock, commodity or index. In NO circumstances should they be construed as recommendations to trade. If I choose to trade what I see, that is MY decision. YOU must, in turn, come to YOUR OWN conclusions about what action, if any, YOU might choose to take'.